


Inception

by feverdreambloodopera



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, Castle Lecter, Fireflies, M/M, Manipulation, Memory, Murder, Ravage Anthology, Season/Series 03, Snails, a spiral version of time, hannibal's own transformation, one small mention of Bedelia, poem, the firefly man - Freeform, the imago, violence mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:46:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22644343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverdreambloodopera/pseuds/feverdreambloodopera
Summary: Castle Lecter, lost to time, may be a place to which Hannibal can never return, but he does not need to travel there to see the gift Will has left him. In the vault of his heart and mind, he has carried the imago of his loved one, buried in his unconscious, all his life--the last stage of his own transformation. Hannibal's ode to Will, originally published in the Ravage Anthology, 2019.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18
Collections: RAVAGE - An Infernal Hannibal Anthology





	Inception

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PKA](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PKA/gifts).



In the beginning of us,

in the stinging moment when that which was not 

somehow comes to be,

Light and shadow transform into the tiny flicker,

of veined and glittering wings of glass, 

mother-of-pearl,

and mortality.

Let you go then,

back to where I saw the future uncurling

like the fronds of a fern unpeeling, 

the finite infinity of life and growth 

of self-same simultaneity,

a porcelain perpetuity,

these branches of time collapsing back in on us.

Will you go there? To where

memories do not decay,

but hide away?

In oubliettes so deep,

secrets lie and never sleep.

She spreads her fingers to slap the surface of the water,

Her violent joy. My daughter.

But you have been there already,

to where my _kami_ stands as steward

of places not as abandoned as they should be,

and reaches out to you with soft touches from 

the transparent membranes of flax wings,

Where you once walked and saw and knew

her heart, and mine, and even yours too.

You take from her what I could never pry 

out of the grip of her fine long fingers, 

though they wrap around a long barrel

and free the bullet’s rifled spiral.

You give to her that which she would never take,

and freely she begins to spin

in wider and wider concentric rings.

We, all three, grasp this reddish hand so small,

the prints of fingers spreading out over stone.

These creeping fractals of paint in the cracks

identify my destiny.

Turn without, turn within.

She laughs at bubbles and claps the surface of the water,

My violent joy-- my daughter.

What is life, then, to give or to take?

In my cochlear garden 

she counts on those fingers 

a number that never reaches ten.

He never dies,

But begs and cries and denies.

Sounds that breathe in my spiracles.

Sounds that bleed in my spiracles.

I take her hands and pull her from the surface of the water.

My greatest joy. My daughter.

My _kami_ takes him, 

and I give him to her, to give to you,

and you give back to me.

I am a child, a young man,

an old man also.

I was a child when you came 

and spun in me the silk of you.

I am a child when you come.

You digest me from the inside out.

Your imaginal cells fill my chrysalis.

In red ichor you tear free,

and beat my fragile wings to pump blood into them

before flying away from me.

I have searched for you

in each grain of sand in the hourglass

as it falls and turns and falls again.

I have seen promises of you

in the eyes of those I treat

and she who treats me.

What is life, then, to give or to take?

I have created and destroyed you, _imago meis_ ,

_ad infinitum_.

I have created and destroyed you, _imago meis_ ,

_non in perpetuum_. 


End file.
